With the 83-78 loss, Florida coach Mike White drops to 6-8 in his UF tenure in games decided by 5 points or less.

KeVaughn Allen said of three fouls in first half, he thought two weren't fouls, said he thought he could play with two fouls and not get 3rd

Mike White on bringing KeVaughn back in with two fouls, said he didn't want to struggle offensively before halftime.

Senior Kasey Hill was asked to do more offensively with KeVaughn Allen in foul trouble, but it’s never ideal for a starting point guard to have an assist-to-turnover ratio of 3 to 5. Credit Hill, though, for not being afraid to drive inside despite FSU’s size and length around the basket. I felt Hill could have drove in during the closing minutes to try to draw contact and cut into FSU’s 77-74 lead in the closing minutes, but he chose to pull the ball out instead.

A dash of hot shooting in the second half from sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen and some unexpected contributions allowed the Gators to remain unblemished in SEC play with an 83-70 win over the Volunteers before a sellout crowd of 10,843 at the O'Connell Center.

Florida (12-3, 3-0 SEC) won its fifth straight in an imperfect game that revealed some flaws. But unlike last Tuesday against Ole Miss, Florida closed strong, outscoring Tennessee 17-7 in the final four minutes.

“We showed a little more fight and feistiness and mental resolve to not fold,” Florida coach Mike White said. “There's a few games last year, at Tennessee last year being one, where we didn't respond really well to a hard-fought game.”

Allen scored 16 of his season-high 23 points in the second half and made four 3-pointers in the game's final eight minutes.

Because all other teams are our adversaries and it hurts for one of our own to join the side of our enemies. Ok, let me put it in terms hogvillians can relate to. It's sorta like if one of your Arkansas relatives left to join the Union army during the Civil War.

White also said at SEC spring meetings that G KeVaughn Allen could see more time at point backing up Chris Chiozza.

Seems like it is working out swimmingly. The guy is a wasted scholarship. Save the talk about his averages. He shoots 1,200 shots a game to average 12 points a game. In fact, he only averages that many because he forces shots to get fouled.

— Florida junior guard KeVaughn Allen continues to struggle. Allen went just 1 of 5 from the field with 2 points, not scoring until midway through the second half, and missed a free throw in an attempt to convert a three-point attempt. The thought going into the season was the addition of transfer perimeter threats Egor Koulechov and Jalen Hudson, Allen would get more open looks on the perimeter. But Allen has had a hard time meshing with the two newcomers. The Gators need to find a way to get their preseason All-SEC standout going.

Yep. Guy doesn't shoot 3s, so I think he is shooting over 50% and averaging almost as many points as Allen is. Allen shoots 5 or 6 3s a game. Whitt rebounds better, averages more assists, steals, and blocks. Would be really nice to have him on this Hog team right now, especially with Garland not cleared.

Yep. Guy doesn't shoot 3s, so I think he is shooting over 50% and averaging almost as many points as Allen is. Allen shoots 5 or 6 3s a game. Whitt rebounds better, averages more assists, steals, and blocks. Would be really nice to have him on this Hog team right now, especially with Garland not cleared.

Hogfather I've come back to this thread to eat a little crow.Kevaughn is closer to the player you always said he would be and not so much the player I thought he would be.You nailed that one pretty good.

Hogfather I've come back to this thread to eat a little crow.Kevaughn is closer to the player you always said he would be and not so much the player I thought he would be.You nailed that one pretty good.

Hey, hoglady, you're one heck of a lady to come back and post this. Thanks!

Sure hope the Hogs shut him down and beat his team this season! He'll probably light us up for 38 and Florida beat us by 59. That's usually how it works.

Three observations following UF’s 71-69 loss to Clemson in the Orange Bowl Classic:

— For as bad as Florida played defensively down the stretch, the Gators still could have pulled off a win against Clemson with better offensive possessions in crunch time. Florida coach Mike White credited Clemson’s ball screen defense late, but the Gators had a near shot clock violation on a KeVaughn Allen heave with 40 seconds left and settled for too many perimeter shots instead of trying to get the ball inside or drive and get fouled. The Gators scored just five points in the final 7:08, which isn’t going to cut it against SEC opponents.

— One reason why Florida didn’t play as well defensively in the second half was due to playing away from its bench. Florida coach Mike White was able to direct traffic in the first half and the defensive positioning helped the Gators hold Clemson to 33 points in the first 20 minutes. But because Florida is a quiet team on the court, the Gators were unable to help each other with positioning in the second half.

I'm definitely surprised to see KeVaughn regress like he has thus far this season. He's still go plenty of time left to put it all together, but he has absolutely taken a step back this season. I might have misjudged him. We'll see how the rest of the season and next season play out.

Guess he won't declare for the draft this year. From what I understand, while at Florida, he was supposed to be working on his point guard skills bc that is the position he would play at the next level.

Guess he won't declare for the draft this year. From what I understand, while at Florida, he was supposed to be working on his point guard skills bc that is the position he would play at the next level.

Seems to be going swimmingly.

Might be evidence that Mike White can't develop players. He might be another Calipari, without the same recruiting prowess.

Mike White certainly hopes so. The Gators will open SEC play this weekend against Vanderbilt and Allen is just 6-21 from three-point range in his last three games. The 6-2 junior is shooting just 34.4 percent from the field this season and 29.0 percent from three-point range. ... Florida (8-4) has struggled since scoring 100 or more points in four or its first five games and has other things it needs to refine, but this group can’t come close to reaching its potential ceiling [sic] if Allen doesn’t get back to playing like one of the best players in the SEC.

The 6-foot-2 Allen had another off-shooting day Saturday at Ole Miss, going 2 of 9 from the floor and 1 of 6 from 3-point range during UF’s 78-72 loss to the Rebels. Allen finished with five points, three assists and three turnovers.

There was hope that Allen could break out, considering two years ago at the The Pavilion at Ole Miss, the North Little Rock, Ark., native scored 27 points on 9-of-11 shooting as a freshman. But the rough night from the field dropped Allen to 29.1-percent shooting from 3-point range on the season (25-86) and 29.4 percent from 3-point range in SEC play (5-17).

White said he doesn’t think it’s a case of needing to go back and examine Allen’s shooting mechanics, when he shot 37 percent from 3-point range on the season.

“KeVaughn is really shooting the ball in practice and you know, we do shooting drills in practice, where he’s knocking it down really consistent,” White said. “In talking to him, he’s a man of few words, but he feels confident, he feels good about himself. I don’t know what it is …

“I would bet he would have a big game pretty soon. I was hoping it would be against the Rebels.”

Allen had a 3-pointer at the first-half buzzer to tie the score at 31 at halftime and had a pretty assist on a bounce pass to Jalen Hudson in the first half. But with Hudson in foul trouble, Allen was unable to find a groove, turning the ball over twice in traveling violations in the second half. Allen was also caught out of position at times defensively while guarding Ole Miss guard Markel Crawford.

Florida teammates remain confident Allen will snap out of his season-long funk. Allen has scored in double figures in just seven of UF’s 17 games this season.

I love how they act like it is just a slump, even though a majority of his career at Florida, he has been just an average player, at best. Basically, he had a "breakout" season last year that is an average season for a good player. Otherwise, he has been what he has always been; a high volume, low % shooter. He will have a couple of 20-30 point games and everyone will talk about what a scorer he is, even though it takes him 20 shots to get there.

— It was an up-and-down game for junior guard KeVaughn Allen, who needed 15 shots to get to 15 points and also had four of UF’s 12 turnovers. The 6-foot-2 Allen is getting better looks with the emergence of Jalen Hudson and Egor Koulechov on the perimeter and is taking more shots, but is 9 of 29 over his last two games. Simply put, Allen needs to make shots at a higher percentage in order for Florida to become a more dynamic offense.

No. 23 Gators continued an unfortunate trend of following momentous wins with frustrating setbacks, taking a 72-60 loss at Georgia in Athens, Ga.

Florida (15-7, 6-3 SEC) was coming off a 21-point blowout win over Baylor in the Big 12/SEC Challenge and had won 9 of its last 11 games overall before a rough shooting performance undermined them in this one.

Gators later led 51-48 after another Hudson 3-pointer with 10:49 left to play. Incredibly, though, Florida wouldn’t make another field goal until there was 1:07 remaining. During that cold spell, they missed 15 straight shots from the field and 19 of 20.

They would finish 36.5 percent from the field (34.6 from 3-point range).

Chiozza finished with 15 points and 6 assists (with 1 turnover) for the Gators while Koulechov added 13 points and 7 rebounds. Hudson (3 of 14 from the field) and Allen (4 of 11) finished with 9 points each.

Florida came into the game averaging 80.7 points per game. This marked the Gators’ fewest points since scoring 59 in a loss to Loyola Chicago during a three-game losing streak in early December.